Sandra Day O'Connor: Decisions Being "Dismantled" By Roberts Court

USA Today:

Retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor says she regrets that some of her decisions "are being dismantled" by the current Supreme Court.

O'Connor, who generally has avoided questions on the substance of the court under Chief Justice John Roberts, made the observation during a wide-ranging and unusually candid panel discussion over the weekend.

Read the whole story: USA Today

Comments

[wmd]

Justice O'Connor, in the words of my dear deceased Mother, you lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas. You are one with the dogs and the fleas.

[Belinda Rachman - Huffpost Blogger]

When she timed her retirement to make certain that Bush replaced her, she sold out democracy, justice and the constitution and we will have to live with the radical right wing court until we can tip the 5/4 court in OUR favor. Beware of what is about to happen this term. Corporations will be able to directly donate money in federal elections when the campaign finance case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is decided. Judges who are pro big business will have their elections financed by corporate interests. If you think the "wealth care" lobby spending upwards of $1,500,000 a day to influence the health care outcome is obscene wait until you see what they will spend to elect the president of their choice. When O'Connor walked away when she did, she screwed the rest of us. She is as blind as Bush and will never get the cost of her actions.

[Eris23]

She sold out democracy before that. Despite all the niceties and platitudes sung about her since her retirement, I never found her to be a good justice. Ok, so she wasn't so opposed to privacy as to outlaw abortion. So what? This seemed more like part of a quest for her where she wanted an "O'Connor Test" to be remembered long after she was gone, kind of like the Holmes Test. Aside from issues surrounding privacy in reproductive rights, her track record on the 4th amendment was fairly poor. When it came to searches by the police, she was part of the team that helped kick in the teeth of the 4th amendment, as so eloquently stated by Brennan in United States v. Leon.

"Ten years ago, in United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338 (1974), I expressed the fear that the Court's decision "may signal that a majority of my colleagues have positioned themselves to reopen the door [to evidence secured by official lawlessness] still further and abandon altogether the exclusionary rule in search and seizure cases." Id. at 414 U. S. 365 (dissenting opinion). Since then, in case after case, I have witnessed the Court's gradual but determined strangulation of the rule. It now appears that the Court's victory over the Fourth Amendment is complete."

[gevan]

It was her choice to retire and let that boob in the white house select her replacement from amont the compasionate conservative soldiers of god that populate the looney wing of the GOP. What is there to be surprised about?

[montex]

Sandra, your decision to appoint George Bush the the Presidency was the most disastrous decision of your life, and caused thousands of people their lives. I hope one day you realize the damage you did by that one regrettable mistake.

[nikto]

O'Connor's own hands are drenched with the blood of the Republic
she injured so deeply with her BUSH V Gore Decision.

Her phony complaints notwithstanding, She is
GUILTY AS CHARGED.

O'Connor stabbed America in the heart with her "steely knife" of
Pro-Republicanism.

Somebody get a rope.

[mikefina]

Your shockingly ahistorical polemic aside, Justice O'Connor made no mention, that I can find, of Bush v. Gore being wrongly decided. She specifically laments OTHER decisions, not that one.

She is, of course, correct. Bush v. Gore was properly decided.

Now, if we could just unwind Kelo...

[andres20]

You are so right. She was an "enable" but is now trying to plead innocent.

[Lance734]

The really sad irony is that W replaced O'Connor with Justice Alito whom she particularly excoriated in her PlannedParenthood v. Casey opinion. Alito was the only judge on the lower appellate court to approve of the portion of the state of PA's law mandating that pregnant married women inform their husbands prior to seeking an abortion (effectively giving husbands veto power over their wives' choice). O'Connor's portion of the opinion explicitly repudiated Alito when she said that "women do not lose their constitutionally proteced liberty when they marry."

The height of irony is not only that W replaced O'Connor with Alito, but also that Alito provided the crucial 5th vote to uphold a federal ban on the D&E procedure in 2007, effectively overruling O'Connor's 2005 opinion striking down an identical state ban as unconstitutional. Ironic, indeed. Or perhaps, karma?

[rabrophy]

Cheney, Newt, Palin, and Condie started running their mouths just before they landed Big $$$$$ book deals. Is she going to cash in too?

[BambooHarvester]

She can have steam off my sh*t on a cold day !
~ " !

[drd1044]

I wish she was racked by guilt, not just disappointed.
Her decision in letting Bush win and appoint her successor not only changed the Supreme Court but the entire federal bench, District Courts and Federal Appeals courts, that are now filled with ultra right-wingers appointed by Bush. And by the way, the Justice Department became a bastion of injustice and unconstitutional rulings and actions.

[MNTom]

Well, Sandra you did this by siding with Bush in Bush V Gore. You own it lady. Now shut up.

[Imzadi]

You reap what you sow, Sandra. Stop with the faux outrage.

You did this - you own it.

[SEQUOIABISON]

Well Ms O'Conner, when the case of Bush v Gore came before the supreme court you decided to go along with your conservative colleagues and chose to ignore the will of the majority of voters and instead decided to appoint Bush as our newly unelected president. I thought your vote was biased then and think your complaint about justice Roberts is pathetic, senseless whining, since you were instrumental in getting him appointed.

[Tuckelle]

O'Connor has no one but herself to blame. She could have held out until the Bush Administration was out of office but she didn't. Boo f******g hoo.

[fcsakes]

'Nuff said lady, stick your compromised integrity upyourass.

[TheIndependenceParty]

It is the greatest irony and gift, that Judge O'Connor has lived long enough to regret her own replacement on the bench.

We'll get the Court right again. I hope I live long enough to see it, just as O'Connor has lived long enough to regret the trend of which she was a part on the bench!

As so many conservative appointees, ... she seems to rethink now, what she espoused then. As many have pointed out, ... her part in the anointment of Bush II as Emperor took this country perilously close to tyranny. I wish she had the courage to tell "Wheezer" Rehnquist she would not participate in his judicial Coup D'etat, ... but for some, courage comes late in life.

Better late than never, I suppose!

[wgsalter]

Read Gruttinger v. Bollinger, where she expressly acknowledges that what she is doing is antithetical to the the constitution, specifically the 14th amendment, and then says she hopes ignoring the constitution will only be necessary for another 25 years. Good riddance.

[TheIndependenceParty]

Yep, ... Isn't that a hoot! A living, breathing human judge who told the University they were using the Constitution as a knife and not a blanket! God Bless Justice O'Connor!

The constitution, as you well know, was written to abide slavery, and misogyny, ... and if it were enforced as many might like, O'Connor would never have been educated to even sit upon the bench of the Supreme Court, ... and in that sense our Constitution begged to be overridden and those provisions reduced to ash.

Ronald Reagan was so wise to place that fine woman upon the Court! To have her replaced with a bunch of petty frat boys seems not only to bother me, but her. Sonia Maria Sotomayor should begin a worthy turnaround on the court, that must send some into apoplexy! Amen!